The BBC will not be able to withstand any further cuts imposed by the
Coalition Government, its outgoing director general, Mark Thompson, has
warned.

Mr Thompson admitted the corporation was “getting very, very close to the edge” and that he did not “see where the further room for manoeuvre” would be after it makes the cuts that are already planned.

“I’ve been involved in the BBC economy for decades and there are plenty of areas now, much of our journalism and many parts of TV, where, after this set of changes, I don’t see where the further room for manoeuvre is,” he said.

“One thing everyone has to confront is that a tough licence fee [settlement] will mean a loss of services. I can’t see any way round that. But we’re getting very, very close to the edge in many parts of the organisation.”

The BBC has already agreed to cut its budget by 20 per cent over the coming years, under a plan called Delivering Quality First.

But the corporation is likely to have its budget cut further at the next licence fee settlement, which Mr Thompson’s successor George Entwistle will negotiate with the Coalition Government.

Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC’s governing body, the BBC Trust, has already warned that Mr Entwistle must make the corporation “10 per cent, maybe 20 per cent better” than it is at the moment on the same amount of money.

In the past, the BBC has been criticised for launching too many different services that either damage the private sector or are so peripheral they are seen as a luxury.

However, Mr Thompson said he thought the public “appetite” for cutting the BBC had waned.

“I would be surprised if there was a big debate about the idea of a BBC of scale and scope," he said in an interview with Broadcast, the television industry magazine.

"After what we’ve seen around 6 Music and local radio, I don’t think there is much appetite among the public, or among many politicians, for making the BBC much smaller.”

The BBC at one point proposed the closure of 6 Music but the public campaigned for it to stay. Mr Thompson will leave the BBC next month after a decade as director general.

However, he admitted that the company had to collaborate “rather than behaving as if it were just a collection of fiefdoms”.

He will become president and chief executive of The New York Times, in which his annual pay and a golden hello could add up to $10.5m depending on his performance.

Although he “really enjoyed” his tenure at the helm of the BBC, he warned that the job was “not for everyone”.

“There is quite a lot of noise and the odd flesh wound,” he said. “You need to relish a challenge and difficult issues and you need a thick skin – all of which, in my experience, George Entwistle possesses,” he added.

He issued a stern warning to Mr Entwistle to protect the BBC against debilitating cuts. “You have to watch this thing like a hawk. The risk of planning efficiencies is that if you don’t do it well, you don’t get an efficiency, you get a loss of quality. [He needs] to keep absolutely focused on quality and if there is any indication of a loss of quality, to do something about it before it’s too late.”

Mr Thompson also defended the broadcaster’s track record of putting older women on screen.

In the past, the former News Night editor has apologised for not featuring enough heavyweight women on its television channels. However, he claimed that the corporation was still “ahead of every other British broadcaster”. “At plenty of broadcasters, you can’t think of a single name, or only a handful.”